The IMAGE
function creates Image
fields in your data source. Image
fields display images in tables. Use this to show product images, video thumbnails, and other graphical information in your reports.
Syntax
IMAGE(Image URL, [Alternative Text])
Parameters
Image URL
- a field or expression that evaluates to aURL
.Alternative Text
- (optional) a field or expression that evaluates toText
.
How the IMAGE function works
The IMAGE
function takes a URL as input. The URL
parameter can come from existing URL fields in the data source, or the parameter can be an expression that builds URLs from other fields and functions.
The optional
Alternative Text
parameter provides the the image's alt text, which can be used by screen readers to assist vision-impaired users.
To display images in a report, add the Image
field created by the IMAGE
function to a table in your report. The size of the image displayed depends on the width of the column containing the image. If the URL is incorrect, or the image type is not supported, a broken image icon is displayed instead.
The Type drop-down menu is disabled for Image
fields.
IMAGE examples
Display YouTube thumbnails
- Edit your YouTube Analytics data source
- Create a calculated field (for example, Thumbnail)
- Use this formula to create an
Image
field:
IMAGE(CONCAT('https://i.ytimg.com/vi/', External Video Id, '/hqdefault.jpg') , Video Title)
- Add the Thumbnail field as a dimension in a table:
Create clickable images with HYPERLINK
The images displayed in Image
fields are static, but you can generate clickable images by providing an Image
field as the Link Label
parameter to the HYPERLINK function.
Limits of the IMAGE function
Images in tables only
Image
fields only work in tables. If you change the visualization type, any Image
fields in the chart will be ignored, or the image URL will appear as the dimension value.
Images and your data
In addition to the name of a file you want view, hyperlinks and image URLs can also send information, in the form of query parameters appended to the URL path. For example:
http://some.domain.com/a/b/c/somefile.jpg?foo=bar&baz=bat
This URL is requesting the JPEG image somefile.jpg
. It is also sending data via the foo
and bar
parameters.
When reports or data sources contain hyperlinks or image URLs, you should make sure that these point to trusted domains, and that any additional data being sent makes sense to you.
To help with this, images in Looker Studio have the following limits:
Images and the data control
When a report includes a data control, images appear when:
- the data control is showing the default data set
- the data control is showing a different (non-default) data set AND the
Image
field is serving images from a trusted domain. Currently, this includes most Google domains.
If the data control is showing a different (non-default) data set AND images are requested from an untrusted domain, images won't appear. Instead, the table will display the image URL. Report viewers can click the URL to view the image, and are shown a dialog asking them to make sure the link goes to a trusted domain.
Images in copied data sources
When you copy a data source, all Image
fields are disabled in the copy. You can re-enable images by doing the following:
- Edit the data source
- For each field you want to enable, click
- Select Enable.